Pairing and alpha-like quartet condensation in N=Z nuclei

We discuss the treatment of isovector pairing by an alpha-like quartet condensate which conserves exactly the particle number, the spin and the isospin. The results show that the quartet condensate describes accurately the isovector pairing correlations in the ground state of systems with an equal number of protons and neutronsComment: 4 pages, to appear in Journal of Physics: Conference Serie

mTORC2 critically regulates renal potassium handling

The mTOR pathway orchestrates cellular homeostasis. The rapamycin-sensitive mTOR complex (mTORC1) in the kidney has been widely studied; however, mTORC2 function in renal tubules is poorly characterized. Here, we generated mice lacking mTORC2 in the distal tubule (Rictorfl/fl Ksp-Cre mice), which were viable and had no obvious phenotype, except for a 2.5-fold increase in plasma aldosterone. Challenged with a low-Na+ diet, these mice adequately reduced Na+ excretion; however, Rictorfl/fl Ksp-Cre mice rapidly developed hyperkalemia on a high-K+ diet, despite a 10-fold increase in serum aldosterone levels, implying that mTORC2 regulates kaliuresis. Phosphorylation of serum- and glucocorticoid-inducible kinase 1 (SGK1) and PKC-α was absent in Rictorfl/fl Ksp-Cre mice, indicating a functional block in K+ secretion activation via ROMK channels. Indeed, patch-clamp experiments on split-open tubular segments from the transition zone of the late connecting tubule and early cortical collecting duct demonstrated that Ba2+-sensitive apical K+ currents were barely detectable in the majority of Rictorfl/fl Ksp-Cre mice. Conversely, epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) activity was largely preserved, suggesting that the reduced ability to maintain K+ homeostasis is the result of impaired apical K+ conductance and not a reduced electrical driving force for K+ secretion. Thus, these data unravel a vital and nonredundant role of mTORC2 for distal tubular K+ handling

OPTIMIZATION OF TITANIUM NITRIDE FILM SYNTHESIS: CORRELATIONS BETWEEN THE STRUCTURE / MICRO-HARDNESS AND DEPOSITION CONDITIONS

The DC sputtering method based on the variation of the potential of target function of nitrogen flow rate, for the deposition of titanium nitride (TiN) films, with the elementary chemical composition close to the stoichiometric one is presented. The process control method used in these experiments is the identification of the nitrogen flow required for the deposition of stoichiometric TiN layers by using the target potential as the reference parameter. The effects of the nitrogen flow, polarization voltage and discharge current on the structure, microstructure and micro-hardness of TiN films was studied

Structure of the quartetting ground state of N=ZN=Z nuclei

The formal equivalence between the quartetting picture and the symmetry restored BCS picture is established for the ground state correlations induced by the general isovector-isoscalar pairing interaction. Multiple ground state structures compatible with the particle number and isospin symmetries are evaluated. The competition of isovector and isoscalar correlations is discussed for the $N=Z$ nuclei above $^{100}$Sn.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Airborne Particulate Contaminants During Refrigeration of Meat in Controled Medium

The transfer of contamination through the airborne route is one of the most significant areas of high-care food production. The food industry specially the manufacturing of the chilled meat products strive for lower levels of the air contamination, therefore lot of experimental and numerical studies considers the concentration of airborne particulate contaminants, such as different species of food spoilage microorganism. In a food processing system concerned with efficient and duration preservation of primary agricultural produce post-harvesting/post-slaughtering, low carbonylic compounds as potential volatile metabolites generated by the micro flora present in the modified atmosphere CO2/O2; N2/O2, etc. of refrigeration areas for wholesale or pre-packaged fresh meat are of major interest together with other risk factors of consumer food safety. Some low aliphatic ketones with high volatility can be seized by smelling even at freezing temperatures in an advanced stage of accumulation. In this paper we suggest a guick method for the measurement of their concentration expressed as MEK starting with values of 1 μg/m3 atmosphere (refrigeration environment) through periodical and/or continuous sampling through aspiration from the proximity of meat surface both pre-packed and stored in standard cells in modified atmosphere (25% CO2; 75% O2) (25% N2; 75% O2) in an ethanol solution of salicylaldehyde 10% (CAS 90-02-8) when it makes up a colorimetrable yellow-orange compound. Assessment can be done continuously in parallel with comparing the colour with a potassium dichromate scale (qualitatively) and also by reporting it to a sampling curve previously prepared (quantitatively). The specificity of the method is affected only by the presence in the refrigeration atmosphere of other toxic volatile metabolites of ketonic nature (acetone, acetoin, 2,3-butane dione)

Opinionated texts in social media: A proposal for evaluative judgement methodology

The paper reports on a pilot study devoted to the analysis of opinions expressed by Facebook discussants related to the immigration crisis in Europe. Opinions were conceptualised as the subjective expression of evaluation. The data were investigated in line with an original, tripartite typology consisting of 46 criteria of evaluative language coming from distinct scholarly traditions: media studies, linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis. Generally speaking, the proposed templates proved effective when mapped onto social media data; however, as there is a partial overlap of some of the categories used in the pilot study, the number of categories needs to be reduced in the subsequent investigation. The secondary objective of this paper is to present computational tools employed in the study, which, as the study shows, can enrich research methodology in communication studies, and these comprise the “R” package used for data visualisation and lexical and sentence-based embeddings based on LLM.Niniejszy artykuł stanowi raport z badania pilotażowego poświęconego analizie opinii wyrażanych przez dyskutantów na Facebooku na temat kryzysu imigracyjnego w Europie. Opinie rozumiane są w tym badaniu jako subiektywne wyrażanie oceny. Dane zostały przeanalizowane według zaproponowanej trójczłonowej typologii składającą się z 46 kryteriów języka oceniającego. Kryteria te pochodzą z różnych tradycji naukowych: medioznawstwa, językoznawstwa i krytycznej analizy dyskursu. Zaproponowane szablony okazały się skuteczne w odniesieniu do danych z mediów społecznościowych; jednakże, ze względu na częściowe nakładanie się niektórych kategorii użytych w badaniu pilotażowym, w dalszych badaniach liczba kategorii musi zostać zmniejszona. Drugim celem tego artykułu jest przedstawienie narzędzi komputerowych użytych w niniejszej analizie. Jak wskazuje zaprezentowana analiza narzędzia te mogą wzbogacić metodologię badań w dziedzinie komunikacji. Zastosowane narzędzia to pakiet „R” używany do wizualizacji danych, biblioteki Python oraz osadzenia (embeddings) leksykalne i zdaniowe oparte na LLM.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Ferroelectricity modulates polaronic coupling at multiferroic interfaces

Physics of the multiferroic interfaces is currently understood mostly within a phenomenological framework based on screening of the polarization field and depolarizing charges. Additional effects still unexplored are the band dependence of the interfacial charge modulation and the associated changes of the electron-phonon interaction, coupling the charge and lattice degrees of freedom. Here, multiferroic heterostructures of the colossal-magnetoresistance manganite La1-xSrxMnO3 buried under ferroelectric BaTiO3 and PbZrxTi1-xO3 are investigated using soft-X-ray angle-resolved photoemission. The experimental band dispersions from the buried La1-xSrxMnO3 identify coexisting two-dimensional hole and three-dimensional electron charge carriers. The ferroelectric polarization modulates their charge density, affecting the coupling of the 2D holes and 3D electrons with the lattice which forms large Fröhlich polarons inherently reducing mobility of the charge carriers. Our k-resolved results on the orbital occupancy, band filling and electron-lattice interaction in multiferroic oxide heterostructures modulated by the ferroelectric polarization disclose most fundamental physics of these systems needed for further progress of beyond-CMOS ferro-functional electronics